Mannequin
A mannequin is an articulated doll used by artists, dressmakers and others to display or fit clothing. The term is used for life-sized dolls with simulated airways used in the teaching of first aid, CPR, advanced airway management skills such as tracheal intubation and for human figures used in computer simulation to model the behavior of the human body. During the 1950s, mannequins were used in nuclear tests to help show the effects of nuclear weapons on humans. Mannequin comes from the French word mannequin, which had acquired the meaning "an artist's jointed model", which in turn came from the Flemish word manneken, meaning "little man, figurine". In early use in the United Kingdom, it referred to fashion models themselves, the meaning as a dummy dating from the start of World War II. Shop mannequins are derived from dress forms used by fashion houses for dress making; the use of mannequins originated in the 15th century, when miniature "milliners' mannequins" were used to demonstrate fashions for customers.
Full-scale, wickerwork mannequins came into use in the mid-18th century. Wirework mannequins were manufactured in Paris from 1835; the first fashion mannequins, made of papier-mâché, were made in France in the mid-19th century. Mannequins were made of wax to produce a more lifelike appearance. In the 1920s, wax was supplanted by a more durable composite made with plaster. Modern day mannequins are made from a variety of materials, the primary ones being fiberglass and plastic; the fiberglass mannequins are more expensive than the plastic ones, tend to be not as durable, but are more impressive and realistic. Plastic mannequins, on the other hand, are a new innovation in the mannequin field and are built to withstand the hustle of customer foot traffic witnessed in the store they are placed in. Mannequins are used by retail stores as in-store displays or window decoration. However, many online sellers use them to display their products for their product photos. While the classic female mannequin has a smaller to average breast size, manufacturers are now selling “sexy/busty mannequins” and “voluptuous female mannequins” with 40DDs and Barbie doll-sized waists.
Artists have used articulated mannequins, sometimes known as lay figures, as an aid in drawing draped figures. The advantage of this is that clothing or drapery arranged on a mannequin may be kept immobile for far longer than would be possible by using a living model. Medical simulation mannequins, models or related artefacts such as SimMan, the Transparent Anatomical Manikin or Harvey are used in medical education; these are sometimes referred to as virtual patients. The term manikin refers to these types of models, though mannequin is also used. In first aid courses, manikins may be used to demonstrate methods of giving first aid. Fire and coastguard services use mannequins to practice life-saving procedures; the mannequins have similar weight distribution to a human. Special obese mannequins and horse mannequins have been made for similar purposes. Mannequins were a frequent motif in the works many early 20th-century artists, notably the Metaphysical painters Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio and Carlo Carrà.
Shop windows displaying mannequins were a frequent photographic subject for Eugene Atget. The Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours" involves mannequins taking turns living in the real world as people. Mannequins are a common theme in horror fiction. Many people find mannequins disturbing when not assembled. In the Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space, an alien intelligence attempts to take over Earth with killer plastic mannequins called Autons. Mannequins come to life and attack the living in "The Trevi Collection". Abandoned nuclear test sites consisting of entire towns populated by mannequins appear in such films as Kalifornia, Mulholland Falls, the remake of The Hills Have Eyes; the romantic comedy film Mannequin is a story of a window dresser who falls in love with a mannequin that comes to life. The cast of the satirical Japanese television series The Fuccons/Oh! Mikey consists of inanimate mannequins with voices dubbed in. Two mannequins can be seen on the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.
Both were hairdresser's wax dummies. The music video for the hit single "The Sun Always Shines on T. V." by a-ha features the band performing in a church full of mannequins. Commercials for the clothing store Old Navy sometimes use inanimate mannequins with voices dubbed in. Military use of mannequins is recorded amongst the ancient Chinese, such as at the Battle of Yongqiu; the besieged Tang army lowered scarecrows down the walls of their castles to lure the fire of the enemy arrows. In this way, they renewed their supplies of arrows. Dummies were used in the trenches in World War I to lure enemy snipers away from the soldiers. A CIA report describes the use of a mannequin as a countersurveillance measure, intended to make it more difficult for the host country's counterintelligence to track the movement of CIA agents posing as diplomats. A "Jack-in-the-Box" – a mannequin representing the upper half of a human – would replace a CIA agent after he left the car driven by another agent and walked away, so that any counterintelligence officers monitoring the agent's car would believe that he's still in the car.
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Dehua porcelain
Dehua porcelain, more traditionally known in the West as Blanc de Chine, is a type of white Chinese porcelain, made at Dehua in the Fujian province. It has been produced from the Ming dynasty to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese export porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and elsewhere, it was exported to Japan in large quantities. The area along the Fujian coast was traditionally one of the main ceramic exporting centers. Over one-hundred and eighty kiln sites have been identified extending in historical range from the Song period to present; the two principal kiln sites were those of Wanpinglun. The Wanpinglun site manufactured pressed wares and others; the kilns of Dehua produced other ceramic wares, including some with under glaze blue decoration. From the Ming period porcelain objects were manufactured that achieved a fusion of glaze and body traditionally referred to as "ivory white" and "milk white." The special characteristic of Dehua porcelain is the small amount of iron oxide in it, allowing it to be fired in an oxidising atmosphere to a warm white or pale ivory color.
This color makes it recognizable and quite different from the porcelain from the Imperial kilns of Jingdezhen, which contains more iron and has to be fired in reduction if it is not to appear an unpleasant straw color. The unfired porcelain body is not plastic but vessel forms have been made from it. Donnelly lists the following types of product: figures, boxes and jars, cups and bowls, lamps, cup-stands and flowerpots, brush holders and teapots, Buddhist and Taoist figures, secular figures and puppets. There was a large output of figures religious figures, e.g. Guanyin, Luohan and Ta-mo figures. Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, was revered in Fujian and there exist innumerable figures of her. Donnelly says, “There is no doubt that figures constitute the great glory of blanc de Chine.” Some have been produced with little modification from early 17th century. Crisply modeled figures with a smooth white glaze were popular as were joss-stick holders, brush pots, Dogs of Fo, libation cups and boxes.
The devotional objects produced at Dehua “conformed to the official stipulations of the early Ming period, not only in their whiteness but in imitating the shape of archaic ritual objects”. They were used in the domestic shrines that every Chinese home possessed. However, one Confucian polemicist, Wen Zhenheng forbade the use of Dehua wares for religious purposes for their lack of antiquity: “Among the censers the use of which should be forbidden are those made in the kilns of Fujian.”The numerous Dehua porcelain factories today make figures and tableware in modern styles. During the Cultural Revolution “Dehua artisans applied their best skills to produce immaculate statuettes of the Great Leader and the heroes of the revolution. Portraits of the stars of the new proletarian opera in their most famous roles were produced on a massive scale.” Mao Zedong figures fell out of favor but have been revived for foreign collectors. Precise dating of blanc de Chine of the Ming and Qing dynasties is difficult because the conservatism of the Dehua potters led them to produce similar pieces for decades or for centuries.
There are blanc de Chine figures being made in Dehua today little different from those made in the Ming dynasty. Notable artists in blanc de Chine, such as the late Ming period He Chaozong, signed their creations with their seals. Wares include crisply modeled figures, cups and joss stick-holders. Many of the best examples of blanc de Chine can be found in Japan where they are used in family altars and other funerary and religious uses. In Japan the white variety was termed hakuji, hakugorai or "Korean white", a term found in tea ceremony circles; the British Museum in London has a large number of blanc de Chine pieces, having received the entire collection of P. J. Donnelly as a gift in 1980. Dehua white porcelain was traditionally known in Japan as hakugorai or “Korean White Ware.” Although Korai was a term for an ancient Korean kingdom, the term functioned as a ubiquitous term for various products from the Korean peninsula. The Japanese knew of the existence of the Fujian province kilns and their porcelain, now known as Dehua or Blanc de Chine ware.
The Dehua kilns are located in Fujian province opposite the island of Taiwan. Coastal Fujian province was traditionally a trade center for the Chinese economy with its many ports and urban centers. Fujian white ware was meant for export to all of maritime Asia; however a large quantity of these ceramics was intended for a Japanese market, before drastic trade restrictions by the mid 17th century. Items were Buddhist images and ritual utensils utilized for family altar use. An association with funerals and the dead has led to a disinterest in this ware among present day Japanese, despite a strong interest in other aspects of Chinese ceramic culture and history; the plain white incense tripods and associated objects for Japanese religious and ritual observance are likely designed for a Japanese market, as are the Buddhist Goddesses of Mercy with child figurines that resemble the Christian Madonna and Child. Such figurines were known as Maria Kannon or “Blessed Virgin Godde
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period covers the period of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the subsequent conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Ancient Greek word Hellas is the original word for Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived. At this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its peak in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, experiencing prosperity and progress in the arts, literature, architecture, mathematics and science, it is considered a period of transition, sometimes of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint and the philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Greek science was advanced by the works of the polymath Archimedes; the religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele and a syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism in Bactria and Northwest India.
After Alexander the Great's invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC and its disintegration shortly after, the Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout south-west Asia, north-east Africa and South Asia. The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa; this resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to these new realms, spanning as far as modern-day India. However, these new kingdoms were influenced by the indigenous cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary, or convenient. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East, Southwest Asia; this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to; the Hellenistic period may be seen to end either with the final conquest of the Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC following the Achean War, with the final defeat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, or the move by Roman emperor Constantine the Great of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in 330 AD.
"Hellenistic" is distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς. "Hellenistic" is a 19th-century concept. Although words related in form or meaning, e.g. Hellenist, have been attested since ancient times, it was Johann Gustav Droysen in the mid-19th century, who in his classic work Geschichte des Hellenismus, coined the term Hellenistic to refer to and define the period when Greek culture spread in the non-Greek world after Alexander's conquest. Following Droysen and related terms, e.g. Hellenism, have been used in various contexts; the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the conquered world were more affected by Greek influences than others; the term Hellenistic implies that the Greek populations were of majority in the areas in which they settled, but in many cases, the Greek settlers were the minority among the native populations.
The Greek population and the native population did not always mix. While a few fragments exist, there is no complete surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexander's death; the works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos and Phylarchus which were used by surviving sources are all lost. The earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage, his Histories grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC. The most important source after Polybius is Diodorus Siculus who wrote his Bibliotheca historica between 60 and 30 BC and reproduced some important earlier sources such as Hieronymus, but his account of the Hellenistic period breaks off after the battle of Ipsus. Another important source, Plutarch's Parallel Lives although more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures.
Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms. Other sources include Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus' Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrian's Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias and the Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda. In the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laër
Chinese ceramics
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export. Porcelain was a Chinese invention and is so identified with China that it is still called "china" in everyday English usage. Most Chinese ceramics of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, thus few names of individual potters were recorded. Many of the most important kiln workshops were owned by or reserved for the Emperor, large quantities of Chinese export porcelain were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date to East Asia and the Islamic world, from around the 16th century to Europe. Chinese ceramics have had an enormous influence on other ceramic traditions in these areas.
Over their long history, Chinese ceramics can be classified between those made for the imperial court, either to use or distribute, those made for a discriminating Chinese market, those for popular Chinese markets or for export. Some types of wares were made only or for special uses such as burial in tombs, or for use on altars; the earliest Chinese pottery was earthenware, which continued in production for utilitarian uses throughout Chinese history, but was less used for fine wares. Stoneware, fired at higher temperatures, impervious to water, was developed early and continued to be used for fine pottery in many areas at most periods. Porcelain, on a Western definition, is "a collective term comprising all ceramic ware, white and translucent, no matter what ingredients are used to make it or to what use it is put"; the Chinese tradition recognizes two primary categories of ceramics, high-fired and low-fired, so doing without stoneware, which in Chinese tradition is grouped with porcelain.
Terms such as "porcellaneous" or "near-porcelain" may be used for stonewares with porcelain-like characteristics. The Erya defined porcelain as "fine, compact pottery". Chinese pottery can be classified as being either northern or southern. China comprises two separate and geologically different land masses, brought together by continental drift and forming a junction that lies between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, sometimes known as the Nanshan-Qinling divide; the contrasting geology of the north and south led to differences in the raw materials available for making ceramics. Ware-types can be from widespread kiln-sites in either north or south China, but the two can nearly always be distinguished, influences across this divide may affect shape and decoration, but will be based on different clay bodies, with fundamental effects; the kiln types were different, in the north the fuel was coal, as opposed to wood in the south, which affects the wares. Southern materials have high silica, low alumina and high potassium oxide, the reverse of northern materials in each case.
The northern materials are very suitable for stoneware, while in the south there are areas suitable for porcelain. Chinese porcelain is made by a combination of the following materials: Kaolin – essential ingredient composed of the clay mineral kaolinite. Porcelain stone – decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks also known as petunse. Feldspar Quartz In the context of Chinese ceramics, the term porcelain lacks a universally accepted definition; this in turn has led to confusion about. Claims have been made for the late Eastern Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period, the Six Dynasties period, the Tang dynasty. Kiln technology has always been a key factor in the development of Chinese pottery; the Chinese developed effective kilns capable of firing at around 1,000 °C before 2000 BC. These were updraft kilns built below ground. Two main types of kiln remained in use until modern times; these are the dragon kiln of hilly southern China fuelled by wood and thin and running up a slope, the horseshoe-shaped mantou kiln of the north Chinese plains and more compact.
Both could reliably produce the temperatures of up to 1300 °C or more needed for porcelain. In the late Ming, the egg-shaped kiln or zhenyao was developed at Jingdezhen, but used there; this was something of a compromise between the other types, offered locations in the firing chamber with a range of firing conditions. Important specific types of pottery, many coming from more than one period, are dealt with individually in sections lower down. Pottery dating from 20,000 years ago was found at the Xianrendong Cave site in Jiangxi province, making it among the earliest pottery yet found. Another reported -- 18,000 years ago in the Yuchanyan Cave in southern China. By the Middle and Late Neolithic most of the larger archaeological cultures in China were farmers producing a variety of attractive and large vessels boldly painted, or decorated by cutting or impressing. Decoration is abstract or of stylized animals – fish are a speciality at the river settlement of Banpo; the distinctive Majiayao pottery, with orange bodies and black paint, is characterised by fine past
Stoneware
Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a high temperature. A modern technical definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. Whether vitrified or not, it is nonporous. Across the world, it has been developed after earthenware and before porcelain, has been used for high-quality as well as utilitarian wares; as a rough guide, modern earthenwares are fired in a kiln at temperatures in the range of about 1,000°C to 1,200 °C. Reaching high temperatures was a long-lasting challenge, temperatures somewhat below these were used for a long time. Earthenware can be fired as low as 600°C, achievable in primitive pit firing, but 800 °C to 1,100 °C was more typical. Stoneware needs certain types of clays, more specific than those able to make earthenware, but can be made from a much wider range than porcelain. Stoneware is not recognised as a category in traditional East Asian terminology, much Asian stoneware, such as Chinese Ding ware for example, is counted as porcelain by local definitions.
Terms such as "porcellaneous" or "near-porcelain" may be used in such cases. One definition of stoneware is from the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities, a European industry standard, it states: Stoneware, though dense and hard enough to resist scratching by a steel point, differs from porcelain because it is more opaque, only vitrified. It may be semi-vitreous, it is coloured grey or brownish because of impurities in the clay used for its manufacture, is glazed. In industrial ceramics, five basic categories of stoneware have been suggested: Traditional stoneware – a dense and inexpensive body, it can be of any colour and breaks with a conchoidal or stony fracture. Traditionally made of fine-grained secondary, plastic clays which can be used to shape large pieces. Fine stoneware – made from more selected and blended raw materials, it is used to produce art ware. Chemical stoneware – used in the chemical industry, when resistance to chemical attack is needed. Purer raw materials are used than for other stoneware bodies.
Ali Baba is a popular name for a large chemical stoneware jars of up to 5,000 litres capacity used to store acids. Thermal shock resistant stoneware – has additions of certain materials to enhance the thermal shock resistance of the fired body. Electrical stoneware – used for electrical insulators, although it has been replaced by electrical porcelain; the key raw material in stoneware is either occurring stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. The mineral kaolinite is present but disordered, although mica and quartz are present their particle size is small. Stoneware clay is accompanied by impurities such as iron or carbon, giving it a "dirty" look, its plasticity can vary widely. Non-refractory fire clay may be another key raw material. Fire clays are considered refractory, because they withstand high temperatures before melting or crumbling. Refractory fire clays have a high concentration of kaolinite, with lesser amounts of mica and quartz. Non-refractory fire clays, have larger amounts of mica and feldspar.
Formulations for stoneware vary although the vast majority will conform to: plastic fire clays, 0 to 100 percent. Stoneware can be twice-fired. Maximum firing temperatures can vary from 1100 °C to 1300 °C depending on the flux content. Temperatures will be between 1180 °C and 1280 °C, the higher end of which equate to Bullers Rings 38 to 40 or Seger cones 4 to 8. To produce a better quality fired glaze finish, twice-firing can be used; this can be important for formulations composed of carbonaceous clays. For these, biscuit firing is around 900 °C, glost firing 1180–1280 °C. Water absorption of stoneware products is less than 1 percent. Another type, Flintless Stoneware, has been identified, it is defined in the UK Pottery Special Regulations of 1950 as: "Stoneware, the body of which consists of natural clay to which no flint or quartz or other form of free silica has been added."Traditional East Asian thinking classifies pottery only into "low-fired" and "high-fired" wares, equating to earthenware and porcelain, without the intermediate European class of stoneware, the many local types of stoneware were classed as porcelain, though not white and translucent.
Methods of forming stoneware bodies include moulding and wheel throwing. Underglaze and overglaze decoration of many types can be used. Much tableware in stoneware is white-glazed and decorated, it is visually similar to porcelain or faience earthenware; the Indus Valley Civilization produced stoneware, with an industry of a nearly industrial-scale mass-production of stoneware bangles throughout the civilization's Mature Period. Early examples of stoneware have been found in China as an extension of higher temperatures achieved from early development of reduction firing, with large quantities produced from the Han dynasty onwards. In both medieval China and Japan, stoneware was common, several types became admired for their simple forms and subtle glaze effects. Japan
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American filmmaker, comedian, comic book writer and podcaster. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy film Clerks, which he wrote, directed, co-produced, acted in as the character Silent Bob of stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob. Jay and Silent Bob have appeared in Smith's follow-up films Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks 2, which were set in his home state of New Jersey. While not sequential, the films featured crossover plot elements, character references, a shared canon described by fans as the "View Askewniverse", named after his production company View Askew Productions, which he co-founded with Scott Mosier. Since 2011, Smith has made films in the horror genre, including Red State and the comedy horror films Tusk and Yoga Hosers, two in a planned series of three such films set in Canada dubbed the True North trilogy, he has served as a director-for-hire for material he did not write, including the buddy cop action comedy Cop Out and various television series episodes.
Smith is the owner of Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, a comic book store in Red Bank, New Jersey, the subject of the reality-television show Comic Book Men. He hosts the movie-review television show Spoilers; as a podcaster, Smith co-hosts several shows on his own SModcast Podcast Network, including SModcast, Fatman Beyond, the live show Hollywood Babble-On. Smith is well known for participating in long, humorous Q&A sessions that are filmed for DVD release, beginning with An Evening with Kevin Smith. Kevin Patrick Smith was born on August 2, 1970 in Red Bank, New Jersey, the son of Grace, a homemaker, Donald E. Smith, a postal worker, he has an older sister, an older brother, Donald Smith, Jr. He was raised in the nearby clamming town of Highlands; as a child, Smith's days were scheduled around his father's late shifts at the post office. His father grew to despise his job, which influenced Smith, who remembers his father finding it difficult on some days to get up and go to work. Smith vowed never to work at something.
Smith attended Henry Hudson Regional High School, where as a B and C student, he would videotape school basketball games and produce sketch comedy skits in the style of Saturday Night Live. An overweight teen, he developed into a comedic observer of life in order to socialize with friends and girls. After high school, Smith did not graduate. On his 21st birthday, Smith went to see Richard Linklater's comedy Slacker. Smith, impressed by the fact that Linklater set and shot the film in his hometown of Austin, Texas rather than on a sound stage in a major city, was inspired to become a filmmaker, to set films where he lived. Smith relates: "It was the movie, and I had never seen a movie like that before in my life." After that he built himself a library of independent filmmakers like Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and Hal Hartley to draw from. Smith attended Vancouver Film School for four months, where he met longtime collaborators Scott Mosier and Dave Klein but left halfway through the course in order to save money to make his first film.
Smith moved home to New Jersey and got his old job back at a convenience store in Leonardo, decided to set his film, Clerks, at the store, borrowing the life-in-a-day structure from the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. To finance the film, Smith maxed out more than a dozen credit cards and sold his much-treasured comic book collection, raising the $27,575 needed to make the film, he cast acquaintances in the film's major parts. Clerks was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994. At a restaurant following the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein invited Smith to join him at his table, where he offered to buy the movie. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. Released in October 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in 50 markets, never playing on more than fifty screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a financial success, earning $3.1 million.
The film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA for the sexually graphic language. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to bring a lawsuit against the MPAA, at an appeals screening, a jury consisting of members of the National Association of Theater Owners reversed the MPAA's decision, the film was given an R rating instead; the film had a profound effect on the independent film community, according to producer and author John Pierson, is considered one of the two most influential film debuts in the 1990s, along with The Brothers McMullen. Smith's second film, which marked Jason Lee's debut as a leading man, did not fare as well as expected, it received a critical drubbing and earned $2.2 million at the box office, despite playing on more than 500 screens. Despite failing at the box office during its theatrical run, Mallrats proved more successful in the home video market. Hailed as Smith's best film, 1997's Chasing Amy marked what Quentin Tarantino called "a quantum leap forward" for Smith. Starring Mallrats alumni Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck, the $250,000 film earned $12 million at the box office wound up on a number of critics' year-end best lists, won two Independent Spirit Awards.
The film re
